We've had 20 plays ran against us on 3rd and 10+ (I'm not including plays where penalties were called). Of those 20 plays, 9 were converted into first downs. That may sound bad enough, but in fact, if you look closer, it's worse. 4 of those plays were 3rd and 20+ and our opponent either ran the ball and punted or made a short pass. Considering that 3rd and 20+ should be nearly impossible to convert, let's take those plays out and look at 3rd and 10-19.

Now we see we're allowing first downs in 9 of 16 plays. Over half the time we give up a first down. But it's actually quite worse.

Two of those plays the opponent just ran the ball, making no real effort to get the first down (buried in their own endzone, etc.) So actually, when the opponent has 3rd and 10 to 19 yards to go and they pass the ball, they convert 9 out of 14 times. That's flat out horrendous.

Of the 20 3rd and 10+ plays, the opponent gained 193 yards. We got one sack.

Take out the running plays and the 3rd and 20+ and our opponents racked up 157 yards on 14 plays. 4 incompletions and 1 sack. We are giving up over 11 yards a play when the opponent passes on us on 3rd and 10-19. The typical completion is for 17+ yards!!! If they complete a pass on 3rd and long, which they will do 64% of the time, they will gain 17+ yards on that play.

This is obscene. Does anyone ever remember seeing anything like this? Even the old 3rdDownsRUs Defense™ of the Holmgren era wasn't that bad was it?

Richard Sherman doesn't just wanna get in your head, he wants to build a vacation home there.

The one that made me want to blow a gasket on Sunday, 4th quarter with the game 16-13, 3rd and 13, Bradford found a guy for a huge conversion. That play made a big difference in winning or losing the game and I think it's reasonable to believe this defense should stop that from happening.

I'm no X's and O's guy but is part of the problem because we're playing soft coverage on the 3rd and longs? Why aren't we seeing any creative blitzing, safety/corner blitzes to hurry the passer to limit those big conversions?

There are three certainties in life. Death, taxes and the perpetual shuffling of the Seattle Seahawks offensive line.

Aros wrote:I'm no X's and O's guy but is part of the problem because we're playing soft coverage on the 3rd and longs? Why aren't we seeing any creative blitzing, safety/corner blitzes to hurry the passer to limit those big conversions?

You wouldn't want to do a safety/corner blitz in that situation (except as a surprise).

It reminds me of the John Marshall soft zones of a few years ago. It makes no sense to me to play aggressively on other downs - and be successful - and then play a defense totally against what we usually play.

That is ugly...but they are giving up very few points. Just wait til we get this 3rd and long thing figured out with this very young D....Goodell will likely create more rule changes to protect the opposition.

I am getting irritated when I watch the game defense is wiping the floor with the opponent and then 3rd and long we all the sudden go soft. We are a tough hard hitting team and it needs to be used at all times.

Reality check here. The defense has kept people out of the endzone better than nearly every other team. Maybe if you take that TD away from the special teams last week and it's right there. And yet, I'm even reading about the defense on the front page of seahawks.com.

This team has been in the plus category at every position except QB and WR. We can talk about this or that and why, but it boils down to those two positions being flat out not good enough. Last in the league. Dead last. QB or WR is a chicken or the egg argument. However, while I've wanted to buy into the Wilson hype as much as anyone I'll honestly have to say that he's been an extremely average rookie. Not special in any way, shape or form. Even right down to the point he snaps the ball and shows consistent inept pocket awareness. To see such a failure of the passing game coupled with the leagues best running game is atrocious. Rookie or not. Short or not.

Yeah, I'm calling it out.

But yeah, that third down defense could be better though. I certainly don't think it should make the front page of the team's website regardless. That defense provided a very, very winnable game.

vin.couve12 wrote:Reality check here. The defense has kept people out of the endzone better than nearly every other team. Maybe if you take that TD away from the special teams last week and it's right there. And yet, I'm even reading about the defense on the front page of seahawks.com.

This team has been in the plus category at every position except QB and WR. We can talk about this or that and why, but it boils down to those two positions being flat out not good enough. Last in the league. Dead last. QB or WR is a chicken or the egg argument. However, while I've wanted to buy into the Wilson hype as much as anyone I'll honestly have to say that he's been an extremely average rookie. Not special in any way, shape or form. Even right down to the point he snaps the ball and shows consistent inept pocket awareness. To see such a failure of the passing game coupled with the leagues best running game is atrocious. Rookie or not. Short or not.

Yeah, I'm calling it out.

But yeah, that third down defense could be better though. I certainly don't think it should make the front page of the team's website regardless. That defense provided a very, very winnable game.

Just because the defense has been very good doesn't mean this isn't a glaring issue that needs to be addressed. The defense can be great and still have things to work on.

These 3rd down stats are terrible and unacceptable for any defense, let alone one that has the talent to be the best in the league. I don't see the point of bringing up the passing offense in this thread.

Well our D is holding teams to less than 20 points per game, so I really have a hard time blaming anything on them. As much as the offense goes 3 and out I really can't blame them. If the passing game was average Seattle would be 4-0, they are operating far below average in the passing game, Seattle has run 1 screen play to a running back all season. RIDICULOUS!

kearly wrote:Great work Salish. Somebody should tweet this to Sando and/or Carroll.

I would hope to the hot place that Carroll doesn't need to be tweeted about this.

@vin.couve12:

It has been posted in another thread that every single time an opposing team has converted on one of these conversions in a drive it has led to a score. We'd have shut out Dallas if we'd stopped either of those conversions. We'd have easily beaten Green Bay. We'd have beaten St. Louis if we'd prevented any of their conversions on the TD drive. In short, it's already cost us one game and if not for the Hail Mary would have cost us two. We don't have room with our passing game for errrors on D. This seems like it should be easily correctable and if so, our defense would be even more amazing than it already is.

I like more amazing, how 'bout you?

Richard Sherman doesn't just wanna get in your head, he wants to build a vacation home there.

I think we have one of the best defenses in the league and if they could just tighten up a bit on 3rd downs and bring a more consistent pass rush we could be looking at one of the best defenses this league has ever seen!

TDOTSEAHAWK wrote:It reminds me of the John Marshall soft zones of a few years ago. It makes no sense to me to play aggressively on other downs - and be successful - and then play a defense totally against what we usually play.

How dare you utter such blasphemies, he who should never be named....and yes it does remind me of his 'mail it in' zone D. It's a disgrace how often teams pick up the first down on 3rd and long with this defense.

What I don't get is that it seems so easy for teams like Chicago. Run a 2 deep zone, and keep everything in front of you, then run up and tackle the guy short of the sticks, with the first guy to the ball usually getting the guy down.

I sarcastically say during the games that if I were teams, I'd just run, run, then convert a 3rd and long if they wanted to beat us.

While I'm bitching about the defense, I'd love to see them wrap up a bit better, we still seem to be missing the first few tackles a lot.

This all comes down to the approach we've been taking: Not to lose, rather than playing to win.

It's the same approach we've been making with offensive play-calling which is extremely conservative...

Even though we beat Dallas- they ripped us apart on 3rd and long with our brutal zone. I say we go back to the bandit package- Man on the outside, and rush more than they can block. At least mix it in a few times a game. The other times, keep the same the same personnel and play tight man with a few zones for those who back off.

Hawks46 wrote:What I don't get is that it seems so easy for teams like Chicago. Run a 2 deep zone, and keep everything in front of you, then run up and tackle the guy short of the sticks, with the first guy to the ball usually getting the guy down.

I sarcastically say during the games that if I were teams, I'd just run, run, then convert a 3rd and long if they wanted to beat us.

While I'm bitching about the defense, I'd love to see them wrap up a bit better, we still seem to be missing the first few tackles a lot.

Your post made me think of something. All these conversions our secondary can't get to the receiver in time. That's because outside of ET, our guys are bigger and slower. The NFL model is smaller, faster secondaries. Our defense does well when it's being aggressive disrupting timing routes. But third and long in a prevent doesn't disrupt timing routes, it only allows our guys to get beat by speed.

So basically, we're not designed for a prevent D.

Richard Sherman doesn't just wanna get in your head, he wants to build a vacation home there.

SalishHawkFan wrote:This is obscene. Does anyone ever remember seeing anything like this? Even the old 3rdDownsRUs Defense™ of the Holmgren era wasn't that bad was it?

what package is the defenses running on these 3rd downs, any consistency?

theres a huge possibility the tapes reveal a flaw on 3rd down prevent?

may need to bag the soft zone and man up?

I can't remember who now, but I heard on the radio that they'd looked at the tape and there were all kinds of defensive sets. So apparently it isn't just prevent. They said the answer may just be for them to work harder. I don't know.

Richard Sherman doesn't just wanna get in your head, he wants to build a vacation home there.